Speak Up: Advocating for Humane Education Within Your Organization

By: Dayna Verhey, Youth Programs Coordinator, Humane Society of Charlotte 

Before we dive into the heart of this topic, I want to say this: I am a Youth Programs Coordinator for an animal resource center focused on dogs and cats. While I have attempted to compile information that is applicable to different kinds of organizations, I have no doubt that there are aspects of this article that may not align perfectly with your organization or situation. Additionally, it's important that you identify the correct people within your organization to take your ideas to. When you're advocating for your program, consider who you need something from. Regardless of whose support you need, advocating for your program means demonstrating realistic and actionable goals that align with your organization’s mission and balancing potential costs of attaining those goals. Now, let's get into it!

What is Humane Education?

Humane education is a term that encompasses much, and it's important that we share a working definition for the purpose of discussing it throughout this article. Humane education, for our purpose within this article, is the fostering of empathy, compassion, and respect for all living beings while recognizing the interconnectedness of animals, the environment, and us. For more information about what humane education is, I recommend the micro course through APHE's website.

With that definition as guidance, there are many ways to approach humane education. Humane education programs can look very different across different types of organizations or careers. I work in animal welfare, developing and leading educational programs including field trips, camps, and classroom visits that teach children the principles of humane education. This is not the only way to approach humane education! That being said, I want to highlight the issue that many humane education programs commonly face: a lack of resources. Sometimes those resources are financial, sometimes they're physical (a lack of dedicated space, for example), and sometimes it comes down to a lack of staff capacity. Despite this, humane education programming is still within reach. Let's dig into how to work around these barriers, as well as how to gain support from other teams within your organization.

What Does Humane Education Programming Look Like?

Humane education can look like a lot of different things: an online presence, connections to resources, community outreach, dedicated programming, and more. A significant portion of gaining support and advocating for your program is being able to articulate the structure of your programming (or proposed programming) and its direct benefit to the community. For example, if you're attempting to start Girl Scout programming, you'll want to map out what physical components you need, what human elements you need, develop or acquire lesson or activity plans, and then be able to articulate that concisely. Once you've got a proposal down, you'll need to be able to directly explain the value that your programming will offer to the public, as well as to your organization. Here is an example proposal that I used for our Animal Advocacy Club to give you a sense of what developing this proposal might look like.

If you can't explain each of these elements quickly, refine them until you can. If you're attempting to advocate for financial support, you need to give your development team something to pitch to donors. Showing your development team what you're working on already is a good way to do that. If you're starting from scratch, a good way to kick this off is by establishing an online presence (potentially with the help of a marketing team member, if you can). This requires time but little money and can be as simple as linking resources and providing information relevant to the work your organization does. Once you've got that, you can turn to your development team, proposal in hand, and show them just how many more people you can reach.

How Humane Education Aligns with YOUR Mission

What is your mission? Break it down into its component pieces and explore ways that you can help the public understand it better and engage with it more directly. Our mission at the Humane Society of Charlotte is "to champion the wellbeing of companion animals, and to strengthen their bonds with the people who know, love, and need them." Therefore, our lens for humane education focuses on how we can help people care for companion animals using a framework of building relationships and fostering empathy.

When I am attempting to expand our programming, I always ensure that I can explain how our work ties back to our mission. To successfully advocate for yourself, you need to address the ways that your work is contributing in a meaningful way to the actions your organization finds valuable. Another significant component, aside from mission alignment, is ensuring that your proposals are realistic.

What Does a “Realistic Goal” for Expanding Your Programming Look Like?

What is realistic for your program depends on a lot of factors. If you're a relatively new organization without a strong donor base, or if you're just beginning to form a humane education program, you might look into applying for grants. As I mentioned earlier, financial limitations are often an opposing factor for humane education. Educating the community can be a wonderful way to secure funding, though. People and companies less invested in animal and environmental concerns might be more interested in giving money to causes helping educate children. By expanding your scope, you might also be expanding your donor base. The money you secure helps establish what is realistic and attainable. Another thing to keep in mind is that there is no need to reinvent the wheel; reach out to similar organizations or use resources available to APHE members. They are there for a reason, and there is a wealth of information for you to pull from. Once you've established how you can make progress possible, you need to make it actionable.

What Makes a Goal “Actionable?”

Just because a goal is realistic doesn't mean it's easy to attain. Who can you reach in a week? A month? A year? How many staff members or volunteers will it take to reach that audience? How much of a time commitment does it require? Lay out your plan brick by brick, keeping in mind that there should be clear steps for you to follow. Establish concrete plans that you can hand to your development or operations team to gain support. For your goal to be actionable, it needs to lay out who you need, what you need, and how you will use each piece.

In Short…

Advocating for your program isn't easy, but it is doable. Share the work you do, showcase the changes you make, and highlight the impact on your community. For a more thorough guide on how to share the work you do with your development team check out this blog post: Bridging the Gap Between Development and Humane Education. Bridging that gap can be an incredibly useful step because the more other teams understand what you do, the easier it will be to advocate for your programming. The more they see, the more they will want to support the hard and important work that you do. Advocating starts with speaking up, and using your voice is free.